Perfect.

It is 4 33 p.m.

Uh, this is the June 16th Public Safety and Human Services Committee of the Whole.

Should have done that a bit earlier.

Uh council members in attendance are myself, presiding officer, council member Procria, uh, Council President Stewart, Council Vice President Nueva Kamina, and Council Members Kritzer, Parsi, Forsyth, and Sony.

Um we have six six action items uh of the day.

The first one is a memorandum of understanding for behavioral health crises uh intervention services presented by uh we have uh our police chief and um I think the police department is presenting.

Good afternoon.

I'm joined today uh by our uh dispatch manager uh Corey James.

The uh memorandum of understanding is uh that we're asking you to authorize allows us to enter into a partnership with with uh crisis connection.

Uh this partnership will establish a collaborative framework in which our or in which trained behavioral health specialists uh from crisis connections uh will assist our uh dispatchers uh by providing crisis intervention information and referral services uh and support for non-emergency behavioral health related uh 911 calls.

Uh this agreement strengthens our ability to have uh more uh robust alternative response uh by enabling a more effective uh triage of behavioral health calls, uh reducing unnecessary deployment of police or fire units and ensuring community members receive timely appropriate and uh clinic the clinically informed support.

Uh so we've had this conversation uh multiple times over the years around the alternative response.

Uh this is similar to uh Denver Star program, etc.

The call comes in, it gets triaged uh by our dispatchers, and if it meets the criteria, then there's a warm transfer uh to crisis connections uh in which uh they have the uh uh trained behavior health specialists uh and access to uh resources and referral services uh for that community member.

Uh the kind of behind the scenes, just like when uh individual calls uh 988 directly, uh same group of individuals, uh the MERGAT uh group that we've been uh working with and talking about, uh they are dispatched by Crisis Connections as well.

So this is part of that bigger uh infrastructure and framework that we're trying to uh plug into to be able to provide those uh services uh to the community.

Thank you.

Any questions for my colleagues?

Councilmember Kritzer.

So you mentioned Merquet.

So how would this differ from the way that we're um processing calls right now with Mercat?

So this process here allows for the actual uh what we refer to as the warm transfer of the call.

So if the call comes in, if it meets the criteria, we're able to uh essentially patch that person into crisis connections directly.

Uh and it and at that point, they will take over the call.

They will decide what uh services, uh referrals, et cetera, are needed.

If MERCAT is appropriate, then they would dispatch uh MERCAT uh you know to that call.

Uh so this is uh this is just a a piece in the puzzle, but it's a um I'll call it a cleaner connection uh because it's that warm transfer.

Uh it's not just a blind or here, call this number.

Uh it's uh hey, this is the Redmond Police Department.

We have this individual on the line, here's the circumstance, they then take it over uh at that point.

Great.

I I think uh this is great for us to be able to have this research.

I know for a while we've been wanting to be able to solve on this issue around routing dispatch, so appreciate the work on it.

So I'll council president stewart next.

Thank you so much.

Um I also want to ask about 988 calls and if this service uh will receive calls routed from that number as well.

So 988 is uh on the technical side.

If a person calls 988, it does not come to our communications center, it goes directly uh to I'll call the 988 line, which happens to be at Crisis Connections.

Uh so these are two uh separate things.

So if a community member calls 988, it goes directly to them.

If a community member calls 911, uh it comes to our uh dispatch center, uh it it gets triaged, and then if appropriate, we can then make that warm uh handoff to uh crisis connections.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate that.

And then the follow-up is on the funding.

Um the memo says that this is uh service being provided being provided by Crisis Connections, funded by King County, and at no cost to the city.

Does the city need to receive grant dollars or simply join in the service?

Uh we simply need to enter into the uh MOU, and that is the only there is no cost, that's the only process for the city is to enter into the uh MOU.

I think I uh council member Parsi, did you were you next or yeah?

I wanted to ask if you could kind of elaborate on the warm transfer.

Does that just mean that we um have a contact with them or kind of what else does a warm transfer entail?

So it would be um this is uh dispatcher law from the Bradman Police Department.

I have uh a citizen that is experiencing a mental health crisis um and perhaps a few other details, and then the call uh gets transferred, uh and then at that point they take over uh as they say uh uh clinical and trauma informed uh process, and then they essentially are responsible for it at that point, whatever services, referrals, et cetera, uh they will take the lead from there.

Councilmember Forsyth.

Thank you.

So two questions.

Um was this brought forward after the conversation that we had in the subcommittee about crisis connections and the services they provide?

Or is this separate from the it's uh it is is part of a process that we've been working on for several years.

So this is just one of the many pieces that you know we've been looking at.

Uh we've got it uh formalized now through you know through the MOU and understanding both process uh and some of the previous conversations uh we had around this.